In At Home in Mitford, Jan Karon's first novel featuring Father Timothy Kavanagh, the bachelor Episcopal priest inherits an attractive backdoor neighbor named Cynthia Coppersmith, a dog named Barnabas, and fight-prone 11-year-old Dooley.
One night, Father Tim tries to get semi-orphaned Dooley settled down for some rest before the boy faces tests in school the next day. The priest promises to pray the boy at the hour of the test, and Dooley scoffs.
At the bedside, Tim waits for Dooley to fall asleep. Then he offers a prayer many parents, grandparents, or guardians have prayed:
"Thank you for sending this boy into my life. Thank you for the joy and the sorrow he brings. Be with him always, to surround him with right influences, and when tests of any kind come, give him wisdom and strength to act according to your will."
Monday, December 31, 2012
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Bringing Christmas into Focus
Here are several original writings I read on the Baraca Radio Sunday School Class from First Baptist Church, Anderson, South Carolina, on December 30. The class is heard each Sunday, 9:50 to 10:50 on WRIX-FM, 103.1, in Anderson. The lesson also is available each week on the church website: www.andersonfbc.org.
This week’s Baraca hour consisted of Christmas music alternating with the readings. The material which follows includes a Christmas prayer, several short articles, and a Christmas hymn.
PRAYER
Lord God of Love,
You reveal Yourself to us in the small experiences of everyday life, things we often don’t notice till we look back. But when we stop and think, we hear Your voice in the kind word from a neighbor. We see Your hand reaching out through the handshake of a friend. We feel Your warm embrace in the hug of a child or a husband or wife.
Also, You reveal Yourself in larger ways we take for granted: the gift of life; the gift of work, of a place to live.
In this season of giving, Your gifts make us want to say “Thank You.” In words, yes. But also in our actions, recalling how You said we give to You when we feed those with empty stomachs; we give to You when we give warm clothing to those without coats or gloves; we give to You when we reach out in friendship to those who don’t look like us or don’t talk like us or don’t dress like us.
But we dare not forget that gift we celebrate in the Christmas season---the gift St. Paul called Unspeakable. This gift came in the form of a Man. Or, rather, as a helpless little Baby Boy, who would become a Man and live and work and teach and reveal Your love in all the relationships of life--Then unfold that love in a way truly unspeakable, love that defies description as He died to give us the gift of life eternal.
In the name of Jesus Christ, the Gift Who Keeps on Giving. Amen.
12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS
There’s a man in our neighborhood who is so eager to get Christmas over and done with that he has his tree down at the curb for the garbage truck by noon on Christmas Day.
Another man, a friend of mine here in First Baptist Church, may not get rid of his tree that quickly, but he says of Christmas, “When it’s over, it’s over.” Once he gets past December 25th, he wants to put it behind him.
Such an attitude may not be surprising, when you consider, the stores put out their Christmas merchandise about Labor Day. For weeks before the Big Day, you hear carols and winter songs on radio and TV, at the mall, and ‘most everywhere you turn. So, yeah. I’ve had it with Christmas by the time the 25th gets here. Let’s clean up the mess of wrapping paper, take down the tree and the mistletoe, and get on with our lives.
On the other hand, the older liturgical denominations -- Catholics, Lutherans, and Episcopalians -- insist Christmas isn’t over until the sixth of January. These churches celebrate twelve days of Christmas.
Chances are, when someone mentions twelve days of Christmas, the first thing we Low Church Baptists think of is a partridge in a pear tree. Along with lords leaping, ladies dancing, swans a-swimming, and the rest of the gifts the singer receives in that song.
But the twelve days were intended to provide Christian people a longer time to reflect on the significance of Christ’s coming into the world. Here’s the way the twelve days of Christmas got started. We have no real idea when Jesus was born. So different dates were celebrated for several centuries after He was born. The two most popular dates were December 25th and January sixth. So, when the present date was adopted, they hung on to the January date to mark the coming of the Wise Men. That gave twelve days of celebration.
I know, lots of us don’t pay attention to the twelve days, except to see whether we can remember all the gifts in that funny song. But if we were serious about “putting Christ back in Christmas,” one way to do that would be to take some time day by day after December 25th, when the big rush is over, and reflect on the spiritual dimensions of Christmas.
We hear a lot of lamenting about how the holiday has been hijacked. Or how there is a “war against Christmas.” If the season HAS been hijacked, did you stop to think it was hijacked by the commercialism that sends us out to spend up to the limit on our credit cards? Where is Jesus in all that? Maybe we’re the hijackers.
If there really IS a “war against Christmas,” we Christians could win that war by restoring its meaning as individuals and as families. It has nothing to do with whether clerks say, “Happy Holidays” or “Merry Christmas.” We can win the so-called “war against Christmas” if we try buying less and giving more of ourselves.
We would do better to examine our inner beings and determine that we will “keep Christmas alive in our hearts” for twelve days -- or even longer. We can work to keep alive the determination that this season -- above all others -- will be a time when we wage peace, when we wage love, when we wage generosity, when we wage forgiveness. It’ll take longer than twelve days to get that done. But that will win the war . . . if there is a war.
AN ANGEL SPOKE
Lawrence Webb © 2010
This Christmas song can be sung to several familiar hymns, including “Lead On, O King Eternal” and “The Church’s One Foundation.”
An angel spoke to Mary, “All Hail, Blest Virgin dear,
You soon will have a baby.” His words brought her great fear.
“How can this be?” she asked him. “I’ve never been with man.”
The angel reassured her, “All this is in God’s plan.”
An angel spoke to Joseph, When he was lost in grief.
The words were full of comfort, They brought him deep relief.
He journeyed far with Mary And came to Beth’lem’s town.
There, in a lowly manger, They laid their Baby down.
An angel spoke to shepherds, Among their flock that night.
The men came to the stable, Awe-stricken by the sight.
They knelt before the Baby, As parents hovered near.
Then on their way, returning, The shepherds spread good cheer.
An angel speaks in our day: “To you a Child is born,
Go share the blessed tidings With those who are forlorn:
This Child has come to save you, Down from His home above.
As you accept His blessings, Your hearts will fill with love.”
The two following stories are adapted from my book, Once for a Shining Hour © 2011. The book is available through www.amazon.com in paperback or Kindle editions.
A THREE-INCH-TALL JESUS
When I was about twelve years old, the Sears, Roebuck store in Sweetwater had a real-live Santa Claus who was just three inches tall.
He lived in a tiny house which sat on a table. You could look in through the picture window and see the little man sitting by the fireplace in his living room which had a tree and packages under the tree.
This Tom Thumb Santa would get up and walk, and he would look out and wave at us.
The most exciting thing was the tiny telephone by his chair. There was also a full-sized phone in the store.
Parents encouraged their kids to wave at Santa. If the kids were brave, they could pick up the phone and tell him their hearts’ desires.
Because I had parted company with Old Saint Nick a few years earlier, I stood and watched, trying to figure how they managed to get the real-live man to look so small.
After a while, I figured we were sort of looking through the “wrong end” of a telescope.
One day, I picked up the phone to talk to Santa. That was OK with him . . . the first time. When I left the area and came back and called him several more times, the three-inch Santa strongly suggested that I find something else to occupy my attention. Leave the phone for little kids.
As I think back to how Sears, Roebuck shrunk Santa Claus, it occurs to me that we try to do the same thing with Jesus. A three-inch high Savior is much more convenient than the full-grown One in the New Testament.
The Babe in Bethlehem, and shepherds and angels and Three Kings are a beautiful scene on our Christmas cards. If we have a manger scene in our family room, the stable is larger than the Sears house, and the adult figures are taller than three inches. But the Babe in the table-top manger may be just about three inches long. When the season is over, we can pack them all up and get them out of our way without great inconvenience.
There are serious ways of keeping Jesus small.
Some people shrink Jesus by saying He was a great teacher. Nothing more.
Another way is to deny that He performed miracles. For example, President Thomas Jefferson published his own version of the Bible which contained Jesus’ teaching but no miracles.
When it comes to the New Testament’s greatest miracle, the resurrection of Jesus, some modern interpreters say the disciples wanted so badly for Him to come back that they believed He actually was raised from the dead. But it makes little sense to suggest daydreams or wishful thinking could have caused the small movement to catch fire and grow, in the face of persecution, imprisonment, and death. The course of Christianity history cannot be so handily dismissed.
There are famous atheistic scientists who seek to reduce Jesus to absolute zero. But I have fewer problems with avowed atheists or agnostics than with some professing Christians, who seek to cut Jesus down to size. I’ve heard internationally known Bible professors say many incidents reported in the Bible simply did not happen. Without explanation, they just say these things are not possible.
Also, a group of scholars call themselves the Jesus Seminar. They analyzed all the sayings attributed to Jesus in the four Gospels to determine which sayings are authentic and which are not. By their own authority, they declared, for example, that John, the Fourth Gospel, contains no authentic words from Jesus. They say the entire book was composed in a later generation, with no sayings which trace back to Jesus. This approach doesn’t even leave Jesus three inches tall.
St. Paul in Philippians says Jesus did His own whittling: He “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:6-8).
But Jesus in the Bible did not remain in the grave and did not remain in the whittled-down form. Instead, God the Father restored Him to His full stature: “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11).
No three-inch Jesus here! He is sky high.
RUM-A-PUM-PUM
The story of the birth of Jesus stirs the imagination. At times, that imagination runs wild:
Think, for example, of the popular Christmas song of a little boy who brings his drum to the stable and wants to play for Baby Jesus. The song is called “The Little Drummer Boy.” Mary nods approval for him to play. When he plays, the Baby smiles at him.
Let’s use our imagination further about the Little Drummer Boy:
He is self-conscious as the Kings place their gold, frankincense, and myrrh on the ground before the Baby and His parents. He has absolutely nothing he can place alongside their costly gifts.
Anything he has ever owned in his whole life is shoddy by comparison. He wonders what led him here in the first place. But he feels he is no more out of place than those ragged, dirty, smelly shepherds. It’s the Kings who make him uneasy.
Earlier, he heard the shepherds talking among themselves -- about angels who told them to come to town and hunt this Baby whose coming is good news to everyone, for shepherds and, perhaps, he thought, even for a boy with a drum.
With all the to-do of the Kings, in their elaborate robes and with expensive presents, the lad isn’t sure what he should do. Maybe he ought to slip out and play his drum as he heads for home.
He’s been told, lots of times, that he’s good with the drum. Oh, sometimes his mother gets on him for playing, so he drifts out to the village, playing his drum as he goes. An old man down the street has helped him learn different rhythms. A couple of times, the old man even let him keep time on his drum when some other men were playing their lyres and pipes.
At the manger, as he’s wondering whether he should leave, the thought flashes through his mind that he does have one thing to offer the Little King. He could play his drum. But the woman and man might tell him to get out of their way, just like his mother when she wants some peace and quiet. Well, should he offer to play, or not?
Yes.
No.
Yes.
No.
Yes!
So he asks, “Shall-I-play-for-you? On-my-drum-I-mean.”
The man smiles. The woman nods, as if to say, “Go ahead.”
So the Little Drummer Boy starts playing, playing with all his might. One or two of the shepherds slap their knees and bellies as he does licks the old man down the street taught him. He plays and plays, giving it his very best. Everybody in the stable is in rhythm. A passerby starts snapping his fingers, trying to keep up. Feet are tapping. Even one of the Kings is patting his hands together.
The Drummer Boy forgets where he is as he pours himself into his rhythms. Then he happens to glance down at the Baby. “He’s looking at me! Can you believe it? The Little King is smiling at me! Me and my drum!”
Then he stops playing. Everyone is silent. Nobody moves or says anything for several seconds.
Then he hears clapping. People gather around him, patting him on the back.
“Great rhythm.”
“Good show.”
“How long you been playin’, son?”
The Drummer Boy is speechless. He feels almost outside himself. As the others drift into the night, he still stands, looking at the family in the stable.
Finally, he puts his sticks in his belt and turns to go. But he feels a firm hand on his shoulder. He looks up into the kind, steady eyes of the man. “Thank you, young man. Thank you very much.”
“Oh, no. Thank you, sir. For letting me play for your little boy.”
As the woman begins wrapping the Baby more securely in the wide bands of cloth, she says, “That was so special. Thank you for coming to see us tonight. When he’s old enough to understand, we will tell our son what you did.”
“I wish I had something I could leave with you.”
“Oh, you do. You do. You’ve given something special. A memory we will long cherish. The sound of your rhythms will linger in our minds longer than you imagine. You gave him something only you could give.”
As he starts for home in the chill night air, his fingers tap almost silently on the drumhead. He smiles as he says over and over, “The Little Baby King smiled at me. Me and my drum.”
Sunday, December 23, 2012
'Twas battered and scarred, and the auctioneer
Thought it scarcely worth his while
To waste much time on the old violin,
But held it up with a smile.
"What am I bidden, good folks," he cried,
"Who'll start the bidding for me?"
"A dollar, a dollar. Then two! Only two?
Two dollars, and who'll make it three?"
"Three dollars, once; three dollars, twice;
Going for three..." But no,
From the room, far back, a grey-haired man
Came forward and picked up the bow;
Then wiping the dust from the old violin,
And tightening the loosened strings,
He played a melody pure and sweet,
As a caroling angel sings.
The music ceased, and the auctioneer,
With a voice that was quiet and low,
Said: "What am I bid for the old violin?"
And he held it up with the bow.
"A thousand dollars, and who'll make it two?
Two thousand! And who'll make it three?
Three thousand, once; three thousand, twice,
And going and gone," said he.
The people cheered, but some of them cried,
"We do not quite understand.
What changed its worth?" Swift came the reply:
"The touch of the Master's hand" (Welch).
I hope that poem about the rescue of an old violin can strike a note for us and get us in tune with love on this last Sunday before Christmas Day.
Love is our theme for this fourth Sunday in Advent. Even though the word “Love” does not appear in Matthew or Luke’s stories of the birth of Jesus, the feeling of Love is written all over those stories.
We hear God’s love for us in the song Mary sings. She sees herself as a lowly slave in God’s sight, but she rejoices in the gift God has given her, bringing her in tune with His purpose for her as she will become the mother of our Lord:
"My soul magnifies the Lord, [47] and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, [48] for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden” (Luke 1:46-48).
We see love in Joseph when the angel assures him that Mary’s pregnancy is from God and not from intimate relations with another man (Matthew 1:18-25). He pays the price as he accepts Mary in love as his wife and Jesus as his son (Luke 2).
We see love and joy in the hearts of the shepherds as they follow the instructions of the angels and go see for themselves how God’s love is manifest in that stable in Bethlehem (Luke 2)
We see love and peace and hope in the elderly man and woman in the Temple when Joseph and Mary go there for ritual purification of both mother and child. When God reveals to Old Simeon who this Child is, the old man says he is ready to die happy. Also, Anna is an elderly widow, a prophetess of God, there in the Temple. She, too, is keenly aware of this revelation of God’s love.
The Fourth Gospel doesn’t even mention the birth of Jesus, but the third chapter of John spells out the love that brought Jesus into the world:
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him (3:16-17).
St. Paul puts great emphasis on love in his letters. He sees himself as being much like that old violin, “battered and scarred with sin.” In First Corinthians, he refers to himself disparagingly. He says he is no more fit to be called an apostle than for an abortion or miscarriage to be called a child (1 Corinthians 15:8).
So he has been saved from being cast aside, thrown on the garbage heap.
In our primary passage for today, Romans 5, Paul makes clear that every one of us is like that old violin, hardly worth putting on the auction block. Who would want us? He answers his own question: Christ died for us:
[6] While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. [7] Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man -- though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. [8] But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. [9] Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. [10] For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. [11] Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received our reconciliation.
In the auction analogy, Jesus paid the price. He offered Himself for us. He saw potential that nobody else saw. It took The Touch of the Master’s Hand to help us see ourselves as He sees us.
The auctioneer in the poem sees you and me as worth very little, But when it seems we are of little value, Jesus ups the ante a thousand times over.
That was the same violin. It almost went for three dollars, but Jesus sees infinite value in us. The violin did nothing to change its worth. For all the violin could do, it would have sold for three measly bucks. But The value increased exponentially by The Touch of the Master’s Hand.
Bert was a man who might be sold for three dollars. He was down on his luck. Out of work. Very little money. Life hardly seemed worth living. Almost down to his last dollar, Bert checked into a cheap hotel. An anonymous person. Alone in a big city. He had no idea what he would do tomorrow. He sat and stared at the four walls. Got up and paced the floor. Flopped down on the bed. Stared at the ceiling. Got up and walked around the room some more. He thought about going out and finding something to do. But that would cost money. And he was short of that.
He remembered the cigarette he had bummed from the guy on the next bar stool. Remembered smoke as it curled upward to become part of a cloud that hung from the ceiling. Could almost taste the beer gone stale as he tried to figure how to pay for one more glass. Smelled the loud perfume from the faded woman in a faded dress who kept edging closer.
Then, with a start, he was back in the present. He looked at the phone. But he didn’t know anybody to call. He sat on the side of the bed. Then he got up again and started looking through the dresser drawers and came across a Gideon Bible. He wasn’t much into church. Hadn’t read the Bible since he was a kid in Sunday school. But, for some reason, he started leafing through, stopping now and then to read a few verses. Maybe he read from the fiftieth psalm:
Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me (Psalm 50:15).
Or perhaps Romans 6:23:
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The more Bert read, the more he realized his life was out of tune with His maker. So there, in that lonely hotel room in a city where nobody knew him and he knew nobody, he opened himself to the loving, forgiving God who knew Bert’s true value. He felt the Touch of the Master’s Hand.
You’ve heard this kind of story before. It sounds like something from a book of sermon illustrations. But this story is different. I knew Bert. He and I both worked at the Georgia Baptist Convention office in Atlanta years ago. I heard this story directly from the man who had been in that hotel that night reading the Gideon Bible he had found in the dresser drawer. At the time I knew Bert, he was the associate editor of the Georgia Baptist paper. My office was just down the hall.
Romans, chapter 5, could be a picture of Bert:
[6] While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. [7] Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man -- though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. [8] But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.
A stanza from “Rescue the Perishing” might have described Bert:
Down in the human heart, crushed by the tempter,
Feelings lie buried that grace can restore;
Touched by a loving heart, wakened by kindness,
Chords that were broken will vibrate once more (Crosby).
Feelings lie buried that grace can restore;
Touched by a loving heart, wakened by kindness,
Chords that were broken will vibrate once more (Crosby).
By the way, the author of “Rescue the Perishing” was the blind writer Fanny J. Crosby, who wrote as many as eight or nine thousand hymns and gospel songs. She told of how she felt led to write these words:
As I was addressing a large company of working men one hot August evening, the thought kept forcing itself upon my mind that some mother’s boy must be rescued that very night or perhaps not at all. So I requested that, if there was any boy present, who had wandered away from mother’s teaching, he would come to the platform at the conclusion of the service.
A musician friend, W. Howard Doane, had given Ms Crosby the topic, “Rescue the Perishing.” He wanted her to write words to a song, based on those words. So as she sat on the platform that night, praying for some young man to be rescued from his sins, she thought of the words, “Rescue the perish, care for the dying” which became the basis for the song.
But there in the auditorium that night when she prayed for some young man to be touched, something dramatic happened:
A young man of eighteen came forward and said, “Did you mean me? I have promised my mother to meet her in heaven; but as I am now living that will be impossible.” We prayed for him; he finally arose with a new light in his eyes; and exclaimed triumphantly, “Now, I can meet mother in heaven; for I have found her God” (Crosby).
As Paul describes people estranged from God, people in need of reconciliation, it could apply to this young man:
[10] For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. [11] Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received our reconciliation.
That young man left the building that night reconciled---made right with God.
But Ms Crosby tells more to this remarkable story:
In November, 1903, I went to Lynn, Massachusetts, to speak before the Young Men’s Christian Association. I told them the incident that led me to write “Rescue the Perishing," as I have just related it. After the meeting a large number of men shook hands with me, and among them was a man, who seemed to be deeply moved. You may imagine my surprise when he said, “Miss Crosby, I was the boy, who told you more than thirty-five years ago that I had wandered from my mother’s God.
The evening that you spoke at the mission I sought and found peace, and I have tried to live a consistent Christian life ever since. If we never meet again on earth, we will meet up yonder.” As he said this, he raised my hand to his lips and before I had recovered from my surprise he had gone; and remains to this day a nameless friend, who touched a deep chord of sympathy in my heart. It is these notes of sympathy that vibrate when a voice calls them forth from the dim memories of the past, and the music is celestial (Crosby).
Chords that were broken will vibrate once more (Crosby).
Earlier, we heard about a violin people didn’t think was worth much. Instead, the instrument proved to be quite valuable in the hands of a master violinist. That was a poem. But let me tell you a true story about something happening down in the South American country of Paraguay.
Some kids who live on the banks of a sewage-filled creek are playing in an orchestra. Their families spend their time at the landfill, hunting items other people thought were worthless. These folks sell what others consider trash. That’s how they scrape out a living.
And you should see the instruments these young musicians play in the orchestra. I’ve watched a short video over and over to get a better understanding of these young people and their instruments.
A boy makes beautiful music with his cello. And what a cello! The body of the cello is a
ten-gallon oil can. Another boy plays what once was just an old, battered aluminum salad bowl. Now, it’s a violin. A fifteen-year-old girl plays a flute made out of tin cans. Galvanized pipes and other pieces of scrap metal have been turned into flutes and clarinets and saxophones. They say bottle caps work perfectly well as the keys for the sax. A tall yellow metal barrel is now the body of a double bass violin. And on it goes.
This recycling project was the brainchild of a social worker and music teacher named Favio Chavez.
Senor Chavez said he learned clarinet and guitar as a child, and had started a small music school in another town in Paraguay before he got a job with an environmental organization teaching trash-pickers how to protect themselves. He even started a tiny music school at the landfill several years ago.
The violins and cellos and wind instruments the kids play don’t look like much. But their playing is anything but ragtag. They have caring teachers who know how to get music out of them, teachers who find ways to get them out of the garbage dump. The teachers have found money to take the kids to other countries for public performances. This calls attention to how you can do something worthwhile with things that seem worthless.
The man who had the initial vision, Favio Chavez, discovered the talents of one of the trash-pickers. The man had been a carpenter, so he knew how to build all sorts of things. Still another man had been repairing damaged trumpets in another town. Then Senor Chavez enlisted him to make instruments out of trash.
Many orchestras use the word philharmonic in their names. That word’s original meaning is love for music. So it makes sense to call an orchestra a philharmonic orchestra because its members love music. The orchestra for the kids from the landfill is called the Landfill Harmonic.
One repairman said making instruments from garbage is slow work that demands precision. But he finds it “very gratifying.” He said, “Chavez is turning these kids . . . into people with a lot of self-esteem, giving them a shield against the vices.”
The 14-year-old first violinist for the orchestra said this about her experience: “The orchestra has given a new meaning to my life, because in [our village], unfortunately, many young people don’t have opportunities to study, because they have to work or they’re addicted to alcohol and drugs.”
On the video, you could see a young fellow’s eyes light up as he played. He was so proud of the rich harmonic sounds he creates on his instrument made of recycled garbage.
Another teenage girl said this about the music she makes; “When I listen to the sound of a violin, I feel butterflies in my stomach. It’s a feeling that I don’t know how to explain.”
Still another young girl said, “My life would be . . .” Then her voice trailed off as she hunted for words to finish her thought. She shrugged her shoulders, then said “My life would be . . . worthless without music.”
Her words calls the song to mind:
What would I do without my music,
What would I do without my song,
What would I do without my music,
To make it right when everything seems wrong (Middlebrooks and Belland).
We noted earlier that Matthew and Luke never use the word love to describe what God did in sending Jesus into the world. But love is evident in what God did and in the lives of people who responded to God’s love.
As Christina Rossetti wrote:
Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and angels gave the sign (Rossetti).
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and angels gave the sign (Rossetti).
And my friend Bert found God’s love -- or God’s love found Bert -- in that Gideon Bible.
Love is never mentioned in that video about the Landfill Harmonic, but God’s love shows through in Senor Chavez and his friends as they find trash in the landfill and turn that seemingly worthless junk into musical instruments. And those musical instruments turn those kids from the landfill into young musicians with hope for the future.
One of the trash-pickers explained it this way:
We found the violin’s shell in this pile [of garbage] and that’s why we began to make
recycled instruments. I never imagined building instruments [out of trash, but] I feel
very happy when I see a kid playing a recycled violin.”
The video explains that Landfill Harmonic is “about people transforming trash into music; about love, courage, and creativity.”
In the video, one man said, “People around here realize we shouldn’t throw trash away carelessly.” But he added, “Well, we shouldn’t throw people away either.”
And that brings us full circle, back to poem we began with, about the seemingly worthless violin that almost sold for three dollars.
SOURCES FOR "IN TUNE WITH LOVE"
Fanny J. Crosby, “Rescue the Perishing.” http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/r/e/rescuetp.htm.
Harry Middlebrooks and Bruce Belland
Christina Rossetti, “Love Came Down at Christmas,” Time Flies: a Reading Diary, 1885.
Myra Brooks Welch, “The Touch of the Master’s Hand”
The Search for Joy May Frustrate Us
Psalm 30, verse 5:
Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.
Luke 2:10-11:
“. . . The angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see---I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ, the Lord.”
If your mind has been turned toward the massacre of school children and adults in Newtown, Connecticut, you may not see much cause for joy. Let’s admit right up front: There is nothing that brings us joy as we think of the shooting spree which left some twenty children and several adults dead.
Our hearts grieve for those grade school children whose lives were snuffed out and for the teacher and adults in the school who died as well. The parents and other family members see little joy as they try to come to terms with the deaths of their little six- and seven-year-olds.
People have said some senseless things after hearing about this. A former governor who tried to get the presidential nomination in 2008 gave his explanation for these deaths. This politician-turned-television commentator, said,
"We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we have systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?" (Huckabee) Earlier this year, this man said about another mass shooting:
". . . since we've ordered God out of our schools, and communities, the military and public conversations, you know we really shouldn't act so surprised" when such things happen."
That kind of thing is said quite often by politicians. But a neighbor of ours put something up on Facebook today which is a good answer to these reckless statements. Vic McDade posed a question:
For those who ignorantly say "we have taken God out of our schools", how can we
or the government remove an omnipotent, omnipresent God? If the government did not
put Him there, how can the government remove Him? God is working all around the world
in places where He is not allowed by the government. Have enough faith to know God
is always with us if we are His children. God bless.
We don’t know what to say in the face of these killings, abroad or at home. But a pastor in Vermont gave some pointers about what NOT to say, but also some appropriate things to say in the face of death, especially when children die. Pastor Emily Heath previously was a chaplain in the emergency department of a children’s hospital. She said she so many senseless tragedies, but she said, “I also heard some of the wort theology of my life coming from people who thought they were bringing comfort to the parents. More often than not, they weren’t. And often they made the situation worse” (Heath).
Some of the horribly wrong things people say include these:
"God just needed another angel."
Or, "Thank goodness you have other children," or, "You're young. You can have more kids."
Pastor points out that “The loss of a child will always be a loss, no matter how many other children a parent has or will have.”
“We may not understand it, but this was God's will.” The pastor says about that, “Unless you are God, don't use this line.”
But the pastor suggests some things to say which may help the grieving person:
“I don't believe God wanted this or willed it.” We need to remember that not everything that happens is what God wants to happen.
Another thing: It’s good to tell the person it’s OK to be angry and that you will be ready to listen to angry expressions.
You should be quick to admit you don’t know why this happened.
Also, tell the grieving friend that you really can’t imagine or understand what he or she is going through. Because you don’t.
Joy can comes when you least expect it.
Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.
John I. Durham in The Broadman Bible Commentary paraphrases it this way:
Tears may come to spend the night, but joy comes with the morning (Durham 230).
That contrast between times of sorrow and times of joy is the theme for this entire 30th Psalm. The poet takes us back and forth between sad times and joyous times.
The old Spiritual put it this way:
Sometimes I’m up, sometimes I’m down. Yes, my Lord.
Sometimes I’m almost to the ground. Yes, my Lord.
The Bible is a book of high idealism. But at times it is also a book of hard-down realism. Psalm 30 is realistic in showing how our lives fluctuate between joy and sadness. We often act as if the life of faith is a life of constant joy. But, down deep, we know better.
Right after the line that says “Joy comes with the morning,” the Psalmist says he had thought he could live on the mountaintop always and not worry about going down in the valley:
As for me, I said in my prosperity, “I shall never be moved.” By your favor, O Lord, you had established me as a strong mountain.
But in the middle of that prosperity, he had a rude awakening:
You hid your face; I was dismayed.
Georgia novelist Terry Kay tells of a young woman who is taken in by the empty promises of an older man, a traveling salesman, who had a “salesman’s way of building castles out of air.” Then someone in the story says, “Lottie wanted to live in castles, even those made of air (Kay 30).
We build castles of air if we think the sun will always shine on us. With that kind of personal building project, we need the somber reminder from the psalmist:
I said in my prosperity,“I shall never be moved” . . . You hid your face; I was dismayed.
Now, let’s consider some situations the psalmist describes in which Joy may come when we don’t expect it:
But let’s back up and look at the opening of this 30th Psalm.
The Psalmist begins with praise because God helped him in a time of great need:
I will extol you [lift up praise to you], O Lord, for you have drawn me up, and did not let my foes rejoice over me. (Strong 107).
When the poet says, you have drawn me up, the word [dalah] pictures letting down a bucket for drawing water. So the writer says, in effect, I was ‘way down in a hole where I couldn’t get out, and the Lord drew me out. [Item 1802 Strong]
Again, most of us have “been there, done that.” You probably can recall times the Lord pulled you out, when you felt you were down in a hole and unable to get out by my own strength.
So the psalm begins with a description of help from God in an unspecified situation.
I read a newspaper story about some of the people who had been displaced by a hurricane. A mother with two daughters told of how they had been doing pretty well as they moved into a rent house they own in a town outside the devastated area. But when Thanksgiving time came, they began to sense their great personal loss and were not able to summon much joy for the extended holiday season from then to Christmas and New Year’s (Mabin). They were still searching for Joy.
Cort Flint was pastor of our First Baptist Church in Anderson, South Carolina, back in the 1960s. Dr. Flint wrote a book on grief. I’ve always felt the very title was a help in time of trouble. He called the book Grief’s Slow Wisdom. Likewise, joy may come slowly.
It’s true of Peace and of Joy, two Advent themes: You’re not likely to find either one as the direct result of a search. Both Peace and Joy are more likely to come as by-products of drawing near to God.
Then, verses 2-3 describe God’s help in time of sickness:
O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me. O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol [that is, from the grave], restored me to life so that I might not go down to the Pit.
This word for Pit can mean a cistern used as a dungeon [Strong, Item 953]. So this ties in with being drawn out of water which we noticed in the first verse.
When we are sick, we may feel as helpless as if we were down in a cistern.
From time to time, we hear of miracles of healing. Some of you who listen to this program have told me of such miracles which bring joy to the ill and their families and friends. In terms of the psalmist’s testimony, the Lord restored me to life so that I might not go down to the Pit.
But the ill are not always brought back to life and health.
When healing does not come, this is no reflection on the faith of the patient or the faith of family and friends. But “Joy comes with the morning” when a seriously ill person is healed. We say, with the psalmist in verse 4: Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name.
The psalmist then notes another time of joy:
v. 5 [God’s] anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime.
With the pressure of guilt, all joy leaves us. But Joy will come if we seek God’s forgiveness.
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lady Macbeth wrestles with guilt over the murders she and her husband have committed. So Macbeth asks the court physician:
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow . . . (Shakespeare)
If you are struggling with guilt, let me assure you: God will forgive and bring you lasting joy.
The psalmist offers one more reminder of the source of Joy in verses 11-12:
You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth [clothing worn to denote sorrow] and clothed me with Joy, so that my soul may praise you and not be silent.
The Hebrew word for joy means a creaking or shrill sound, a shout. [7440 & 7442, Strong]
When we’re aware of God’s incredible goodness to us, it makes us want to shout for joy!
If we search for joy in outward circumstances, the search may well end in futility.
The song “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” as originally written, reflects a dismal prospect for joy at Christmas, just hoping for better times “next year”:
Next year all our troubles will be out of sight. . . .
Next year all our troubles will be miles away.
Faithful friends who were dear to us, Will be near to us once more.
Someday soon we all will be together, If the fates allow.
Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow (Martin and Blane).
But, late in life, the composer Hugh Martin became a Christian. So he laid aside the pessimism and, with fellow songwriter John Fricke, rewrote his song this way:
Make the music mighty as the heav'ns allow
And have yourself a blessed little Christmas now (Martin and Fricke).
The time may come when you or I will be alone, with no relative to share the season with. What then? It’ll be rough. But we need to recall that the original meaning of Christmas -- celebrating the coming of Christ into the world and into our lives -- is more basic than the dearest of human relationships. Until we come to terms with that, if our health is bad, if we don’t have children and grandchildren gathered round or if money is tight and we can’t buy presents, we’ll “have to muddle through somehow.”
It comes down to a question of what we are celebrating, of how we define Christmas Joy.
Family gatherings. Yes.
Santa Claus. Yes.
Christmas cards. Yes.
Oodles of good food. Yes.
But where does Baby Jesus factor into all this?
Does Christmas Joy come from these beautiful but external aspects of Christmas?
Or from a deep awareness of God’s revelation of Himself through His Son?
These are not necessarily contradictory, but success in the search for Christmas Joy will depend on our definition.
Our second passage on Joy is from Luke’s Christmas story. Angels bring to shepherds “good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people” (Luke 2:10-11).
The shepherds were down-to-earth people, in the most literal sense.
If they came traipsing into our Baraca class room this morning, dressed as they were that night in the fields, smelling as they probably smelled that night in the fields, our impulse would be to invite them back out the door the way they came in.
But Christmas reminds us, Jesus came to live among the plainest kinds of folks.
When those sheep herders in all their grubbiness found the manger with Mary and Joseph and their newborn Son, the shepherds found Joy that sent them out to spread the word of Joy to others.
Someone gave Pastor Joy Heaton in Richmond tickets to a mega-pageant at a mega-church that charged mega-bucks admission. Pastor Heaton felt the whole idea was out of keeping with the simplicity of that first Christmas night with the plain-down shepherds on the hillside.
She said she was grateful for an expense-paid night out but was worn out by Christmas stars that have to be plugged in. She was tired of churches that mirror the American consumer culture that requires us "to pay to sit in a pew because costumes cost so much."
Heaton wondered whether we might sense the real Christmas, with poor people who slept near "animals in stables or out in the fields," if we went out one night to watch some animals. Not a drive-through nativity scene, but out in the country under the stars. She asked whether we would be bored stiff or whether "the silence and stillness [would] draw us into a few precious moments of wonder and awe."
She asked, "When will we realize that the glory of God is not found in a box labeled “Christmas” . . . ? It does not have to be assembled or plugged in (Heaton).
Often children can be ahead of adults in finding joy.
Stephen Shadeeg is a businessman, the father of four children. They had a rule at their house that none of the children could go down to see gifts under the tree until the rest of the family was awake, so they could all go together.
Their son David was seven years old, and he came bounding into his parents’ bedroom about four thirty one Christmas morning. The father said young David’s face glowing with excitement, his mouth running at about ninety miles an hour, as he cried out "Daddy! Mother! Come quick! I saw it!"
As they wiped the sleep from their eyes, both the husband and wife were sure the rule had been broken. David had discovered the new bicycle he had been wanting for two years. They felt cheated that he had rushed ahead and they had missed seeing his discovery. But it was Christmas, after all, and they couldn't scold him for being overly anxious.
They woke the other kids and with the whole family in tow, David led them down the stairs and through the darkened living room toward a window on the eastern side of the house.
He hadn’t even seen his bike under the tree! Rather, he pointed his little finger to the eastern sky and said, “Look! The Star of Bethlehem! I’ve seen the star!” (Sermons.com for Advent 2, 2012)
ADVENT---JOY---SOURCES
Emily C. Heath, “Dealing With Grief: Five Things NOT to Say and Five Things to Say In a Trauma Involving Children,” Huff Post Religion, December 14, 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-emily-c-heath/dealing-with-grief-five-t_b_2303910.html
Mike Huckabee, Mike Huckabee: “Newtown Shooting No Surprise, We've 'Systematically Removed God' From Schools.” Huff Post Politics, December 14, 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/14/mike-huckabee-school-shooting_n_2303792.html
Robert Lowry, “How Can I Keep from Singing?” http://www.preciouslordtakemyhand.com/christianhymns/mylifeflowson.html
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